Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- A Russian Proton-M rocket failed to
send two communication satellites into orbit today, the fourth
failure of a Russian spacecraft launch in less than two years.

The Proton-M’s booster rocket functioned only for seven
seconds, short of the programmed 18 minutes and 5 seconds,
during the launch of the Telkom-3 and Express MD2 satellites,
the space agency Roscosmos said on its website.

Roscosmos will suspend launches with Proton-M rockets until
the cause of the failure is established, state news service RIA
Novosti reported, citing an unidentified space industry
official. Three failed launches since December 2010 involved the
Proton-M, while a fuel malfunction brought down a Progress craft
in August last year, the vessel’s first crash since it started
flights in 1978.

Russia controls 40 percent of the market for space
launches, which mainly involve transporting satellites and
equipment for others. The Russian space agency chief, Vladimir
Popovkin, was appointed last year after the firing of his
predecessor because a Proton-M rocket failed to deliver three
navigation satellites into orbit.

Within four months of Popovkin’s appointment, Russia lost
its most powerful telecommunications satellite, Express-AM4,
after another faulty Proton-M launch.

In the latest failure, the Telkom-3 satellite, which was
designed to provide telecommunications services for Indonesian
customers, and the Express MD2 were launched from Russia’s
Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan, RIA said.